Scene Listing

||

Scene Schedule

||

Scene Schedule RSS

Owner	Pose
Priscilla	The city of Ghirapur is one almost entirely built by architects who manipulate metal with magic; quicksmithing. A passion for creation is the central thread of the social fabric that binds this state together, where near every citizen is an artisan or inventor, and every piece of it is built by a passionate citizen. Without significant impediment of time, cost, and labour, and with so many restless and inspired hands, there is no such thing as 'historical' here unless it is a monument; everything can be better than before, and the people of Ghirapur spend much of their time constantly improving on their city as some new breakthrough or innovation takes the nation by storm every few years. No building is more than a few years old, and every one of them is as gorgeous as a sculpture, just as much teak and terracotta as gilded gold and gems.     The air sounds of constant construction and bustling street living, and smells of warm brass, varnished wood, turmeric and cumin. Colour explodes from every surface, whether the metallic facades of homes and offices woven together like gleaming abstract art, or the riotous fabrics of open markets where merchants carry exotic wares on equally exotic beasts of burden, hawking gadgets and gizmos right alongside fruits and meats. Even the people dress in bright colours of shawls and sashes alongside jewels and bangles that are completely mechanical as often as not, where what might as well be a smartphone is indistinguishable from a lovingly crafted pocket watch.     It is a nice place to be. Even in the middle of the day, the streets are lit up as much for display as practicality, fed by branching golden veins that pipe swirling blue semi-liquid mist throughout the city, delivering raw, mysterious power to homes and workshops on demand. Gargantuan towers, something like glass water reservoirs caged in ornate brass and gold basket filigree, thrum like audible power lines as they collect and store titanic quantities of the stuff from the very air, most of which are clustered into an impressive, central power hub that connects to the whole city. Not far away, the single tallest building in the entirety of Ghirapur rises high enough to pierce the clouds; a glittering edifice appropriately called 'the Spire', around which huge plazas of mosaic tiles and beautiful statues of past inventors host affluent citizens and government workers, moving between boulevards draped in royal blue and bronze banners bearing the symbol of the Consulate -the technocratic elected ruling body of Kaladesh.     It is a nice place to be . . . if you live in the right place. Despite its dazzling craftsmanship, fast pace of life, and enrapturing design, one who looks for it cannot help but notice that the further one travels away from the Spire, especially to the west and over a river, that some districts aren't quite as bright as others. Sometimes as large as wards, but sometimes only select streets, or most glaringly, specific houses or apartment buildings, glow dim or are completely dark. They are islands of defunct living, where few people step outside, and where candles light windows and smoke rises from chimney stacks, rather than the buzzing hum of Aether power. These 'ghettos' aren't spread rationally according to class or income or region of the city; they are incredibly select, pinpointed down to the domicile where necessary. Pedestrians pointedly avoid these darkened homes and businesses with their gaze, where they walk past them.     It is in these dark places where a spark has caught light in the gloom. It is in that brightest of places where something dark has snuffed out a bit of radiance.
Priscilla	THE SPIRE:     No one has been permitted to enter or leave for hours, save top security officials and the eponymous consuls that make up the consulate itself. The front doors are flanked by ranks of organically sculpted metal automata of all shapes and sizes, all of them armed, and many more can be found patrolling the hallways inside. Stately corridors are blocked off by sealed bulkheads, magical forcefields, and in some cases, some sort of laser matrix design. Search teams comb through each floor in varying rhythms, checking every lush potted plant and moving every sculpture, but almost as a formality, robotic even when they aren't robots. Badges and passes, or especially well-chosen words, are the only currency to be getting around here, as security swings into gross overcompensation for its laxness earlier. Too late.     A consul has been murdered in his office. 'Assassinated', would be more appropriate. There are no forensics teams looking for a suspect or trying to discern a motive. The motive is clear enough to be an ironclad statement, and the means are so bizarre that no forensics available could make sense of it anyhow. It is a testament to the Consulate's control and professionalism that this kind of insane headline hasn't made much of a splash in the streets. People go about their days normally, trading only additional gossip, while a high ranking government official lies dead in his own study, in the middle of the day, without a single witness, at the heart of Ghirapur's theoretically most secure public facility. Something that bold without so much as a statement can't be considered terrorism, so much as an extremely grim warning shot: a promise of a declaration of war.     Those responding to the very much 'unusual circumstances', interested in maybe not seeing Kaladesh's government crumpling and/or the city turning into a battlefield, are warned at the door that they may not really want to see it for themselves, and should seek out an official, preferably a 'Dovin Baan', or 'Head of Compliance, Baral', though they are warned away from bothering 'the Grand Consul'. Personnel on-site will answer questions as best as they are able. Those who insist on going the extra mile however, get the bonus prize of an exceptionally grisly sight.     The office in question, despite being only a pair of doors away from a warm and inviting hallway, is colder than a meat locker, where breath instantly becomes chilling fog. Most of the room is covered in a thin layer of rime, crackling faintly when walked on. A large, semicircular desk at the center of the room is practically welded to the floor by a thicker web of ice, with horizontal stalactites thrown back from its edges. The man seated at it is still dressed in royal blue and brass robes matching the colour of the banners outside, but is otherwise unidentifiable. His skin has been flayed away seemingly from within, slashed through with ribbons of blood frozen in mid-rupture from his flesh, multiple pints of which has been repurposed as a gratuitous, violent coat of paint over the entire rear half of the office as if it had literally exploded out of him. Most of him looks burnt, or maybe more accurately 'eroded', brittle and blackened and not to be touched. It's not much of a 'crime scene' for those hoping for one. People who are actually police have already swept it on-time, and there's been nothing so convenient as to be worth handling internally.
Priscilla	THE GHETTO:     Nobody comes here anyways. The only way a back street gets old like this, shorter than the city that engulfs it after years of being left without improvement, is that everyone who might take a shine to it either avoids it, or has forgotten it exists. It'd be difficult to call a place like this anything like a 'slum' under ordinary circumstances, so clean, ornate, and intact, but the dim silence makes it feel like a broken lightbulb in the rest of the city, frequented only by strange animals, and with the only lights on being those of the back room of a defunct parlour and bar, deep enough into the shadowed streets that it couldn't scream 'mafia den' harder if it tried.     The people there don't seem either the downtrodden refugee nor organized criminal sort, though. Any one of them could have been picked easily off the bright, bustling streets not so many blocks away, and that may well be the point. Without a mask, a uniform, or even a change of clothes, they are regular people with regular identities who want something they see as so basic and sensible that dressing it up with pseudonyms and clandestine imagery defeats its own validity. Men and women, eastern-looking humans, short dwarves, and blue-skinned, four-armed 'vedalken', in everything from merchant's robes to tinkerer's goggles, have gathered around, performing last second packing and preparations.     There /is no/ security here. Why bother? Those present, a surprising three score at least, intend to be on the offensive. While the Consulate is busy covering up their grievous lack of vigilance, all gathered up in one place, they have prepared to strike. They've loaded up big glassy tanks on back harnesses, empty for now, and taps appropriate to the power lines that lie dark and useless around their houses and businesses. Some dedicate themselves entirely to carrying masses of bewildering tools and raw materials. Others are performing checks on a dizzying array of automata of their own design, from clockwork crawling designs to hummingbird 'thopters', all the way up to someone who apparently thought an entire metallic horse was a cool idea. Actual weapons are in very short supply between them, but that seems to be the point anyways.     They welcome just about anyone with open arms. At this point, nobody would be seeking them out unless they meant to see the movement for their own eyes, up until now an irrelevant inconvenience to the Consulate. Before anyone can get much of a word in, they'll have an Aether tank foisted on them and told to ask questions on the go, though anything complicated gets them directed to someone called 'Renegade Prime', or 'at least Yahenni'.     The plan is simple enough that there's no point in keeping it secret: these people have been deprived of basic power needed to do anything here, for 'low priority work', 'temporary rerouting', 'disruptive views', or any number of ways of saying 'being inconvenient and opposed to that power being sent to rich people and government pet projects instead'.     There's not much sense in planning anything before they have the basic power to run their own lights first, and the machines they've thrown together only have a limited battery life as it is. They intend to be in and out quickly, and don't have time to sit around dumping exposition without beating feet. Their target: the Aether pipelines, of course. Preferably, right under the Consulate's nose.
Theo Morrison	Theo has always wanted to go to Kaladesh. It's second only to Mirrodin on his list of 'cool places to visit full of cool stuff to see.' He thinks it's probably a nicer place to live, too, Phyrexian invasion aside. Ravnica's pretty nice now that he's gotten enough Guild cred to get around, too... and there's always Boston. One of these things is only not like the others because he has yet to figure out how to concoct new sets on his homeworld on a friend's behalf. His timing couldn't be worse, though. He's at the Spire in as close to an official get-up as he's got, that being casual clothes with a black jacket tossed overtop, and with a colorful poncho in reds, blues, and bits of gold trim tossed overtop. He bought it about an hour ago when he was still sightsteeing. Kickotron, the three-foot-tall birdlike robot plodding along next to him, is wearing a pair of genuine inventor's goggles that have had straps and fasteners lengthened on the spot to fit him right. Theo goes about trying to find an official and getting the local guard report on the scene. He'd like to speak to whoever is in charge of dealing with this about the problem -- he'd accept either Dovin Baan or Baral, but inwardly, he'd rather deal with Baan. Baral is a figure he has long hated sitting across the table from, and it'd be really awkward trying to explain why he's unconsciously giving him the stink-eye.
August Kohler	The situation came to light on the news - a magitechnological hub was not only having issues with the Concord, but there were vigilante groups protesting not getting power, being treated unfairly. The Watch immediately jumped to find whatever information they could about that, and learned about the rebels working out of the 'ghetto' district. Whatever they were planning was happening now, and it was time to get in action again. August Kohler was prepared for another big mission. He's had time to rest since Maslow Peak and try and get better, and at the very least, there's not an imbalance with his Shadow driving him to emotional extremes. So, he's here, wearing a gray hoodie, armed with a pistol and a knife, and a mirrored bracelet around his wrist, sleeve pulled back to reveal it. He'd shown up, told the rebels who he was and that he was there to help, and asked to know who the boss is and where to find them so they could coordinate. 'Renegade Prime', apparently. Once August had his Aether tank strapped on to him, he'd approach whoever he's pointed to as the boss, and ask them a simple question. "I'm a fighter. If this gets loud, how do you guys want to handle it? How messy? Any rules you have on this?" He's not really prepared to kill, yet - he'll need to talk to Empty Tidings soon about helping him through that. Otherwise, he'll start beating feet with the others to hit the Aether pipelines and get the job done, once he knows how they want to do it. He likes to defer to the people who are actually affected when he can, after all.
Kyoko Takada	Kyoko Takada (usual alias and secretly registered Watch name: Hibiki), is not walking with a bunch of Renegades. She is not carrying an empty aethertank, or riding a bizarre contraption. She is, instead, sightseeing. Dressed in as close an approximation to local garb as a quick shopping trip through a 21st-century Japan with still-limited external contact could get for her, she's walking the bright streets with an only mildly-disguised look of curiosity, like a tourist who doesn't want to be caught gawking. In place of a camera, her world's usual style of magic and her personal specialties provide convenient substitutes, taking in audiovisual recordings with an underlying aether-sensitive scan, lighting up her personal space with some of the results in holographic fashion, and providing a fair distraction from just how thoroughly she's performing the intelligence-gathering for which she is, on occasion, retained by interested parties.     Her wanderings have taken her close to the rebels' route, as information comes back to her on where that route could be, with hopefully few outward signs that she possesses any knowledge fed to her by someone within shouting range of the downtrodden thieves. It is similarly hopeful that no one nearby is able to crack her communications to the level of seeing that she's sending magically-active topographical data to known Watch leader-man August Kohler. She's fairly confident in that, though less confident in avoiding suspicion for the active scanning should she get into any of those selective ghetto areas, where a multiversal visitor might become a matter of curiosity, herself, for lack of the camoflauge of a vibrant multitude.
All-Seeing Eye	All-Seeing Eye is in the SPIRE, having answered a request for aid. For once, his lavish manner of dress doesn't seem overdone. As bidden by the Spire personnel, he sought out Dovin Baan in the hopes of gaining access to the crime scene. The Exalt is quick to provide identification, and though his answers are clipped, he does provide any necessary information to expedite his access to the area.      Today, his clothes, a trendy blend of summer colors, contrast starkly with the chilling gore on display in the office. The lack of evidence further invites contrast by souring his expression, making his clothes seem an inappropriate bubble of joy in a pool of morbidity. The local police seem to have swept most of the evidence which could safely be removed, but, being an arrogant sort, Eye naturally feels he could do better.      As such, along with any efforts from those also inclined to search the office, Eye makes use of his enhanced vision. Circling around the desk, he zooms in on the corpse. He searches the area immediately surrounding the body, trying to spot burn marks or any other distinguishing traits on his chair, under the desk, or on the floor beneath it.
Yuuki Kuran	THE SPIRE: Kuran Yuuki, Director of the Concord sometimes, and incorrigible trouble-finder all the time, had heard the distressing news of the shining city of Ghirapur in that an official was murdered and had come to personally investigate. Outwardly, it was because a magic city of super-inventors with unlimited power to snap-make economies of scale was something that she (rather, the people that advised her, as she still had no real head for numbers like her peers in the community of affluent immortals) thought was valuable. Inwardly, it was because it was pretty and beautiful and thus had a value beyond the objective worth of units of metal and magic. Dressed in muted finery - a long dress in black with a fluff-trimmed grey coat around her arms and upper torso. She smiles at Theo, recognizing him in the bustle of things, and gives the pair of card prodgiy and myr a fingerwave. "I had hoped to see you here." She notes, as she lingers in the room where the crime took place. "I had hoped to catch a..." She lingers on an s-sound. "Ssssuspicion on who the murderer was, but I'm no good with these sorts of crime scenes." She admits, sighing and prodding an ice-shard with her toe. "This narrows it down to anyone who has ice magic, or powers, or... a device which creates ice." She frowns. "In a city of magic inventions. At least natural mages are rare, so it may... /not/ be a local? But I'll cede that to an expert." Since there's actual detectives here! "Strange that there's no signs of a fight. Like the victim expected nothing out of place."
Riva Banari	THE GHETTO: Riva's here too, on behalf of the Watch. While she's not a revolutionist per se, she's fine with doing some heavy lifting. The gross level of suppression being displayed here is enough to make her almost roll her eyes in annoyance. Being without /basic power/ is stupid and annoying. How is someone going to play video games, watch movies, or check out the Internet without power? She might have some slight differences in priorty. Riva hustles along with one of the tanks, happily moving along to assist the group. August is here too, and he's supposed to be in charge or something so she seems to be in good company. She'a a groundpounder and a troubleshooter for the Templars, doing stuff like this is basically business as usual. She settles for trotting along and escorting the group. They might not be ready for a fight, but Riva can be at a moment's notice.
Staren	Staren heard of Khaladesh, and had a vague intent to help the rebels (and if, in the process, the Concord should benefit from new allies or from technology looted from the tyrants currently in power they can use to help more people, so much the better) He's not afraid to go to the dark houses and talk to people. He suggests alternate energy sources from off-world, and is told that there's already a plan, and so it is that he's ended up here today -- with a colorful poncho worn over his powered armor so as to blend in at a glance. He's presented with an aether tank. Nneat. If he can't just buy one, he may need to borrow this for awhile after to study Khaladesh technology -- he still helped the rebels if his presence helped them fill up their tanks, right? Either way...     Well, Staren's here, and he's armed as usual. The rebels may hope for this to be a quiet op but things far too often don't go as planned.     And there's some familiar faces! Staren nods to Riva and August. "Hey guys. So we're all in agreement that this is messed up and we should solve these guys' power problem, right?"
Riva Banari	Riva waves to Staren, a big grin on her face. Looks like she really ISN'T holding that last encounter against him. "Oh yeah, totally agreed. Not sure why this is going down. I mean, I COULD get political about it? But this isn't America, so applying my personal poliitical beliefs here is kind of silly. Context matters, ya know?" She shrugs. "I wanna find out what's up and why, and these guys look like they just want basic amenities, it's not like they're trying to blow anything up." As if her solution to multiple problems recently wasn't just 'blow it up'.
Priscilla	THE SPIRE:     Theo, and then All-Seeing Eye, ask for Dovin Baan, and that's exactly who they get. Though one might normally expect it to take some doing to get ahold of someone important sounding in the middle of a primary government office/palace/laboratory during a lockdown, their queries are responded to surprisingly quickly.     Dressed in an entirely different set of finery than the dead consul or the security guards, is one of those blue-skinned, elfin-eared, slightly alien of face 'vedalken, wearing red and gold, and accompanied by several spindly automata about and tall and skinny as he is. He greets the couple with an officious but surprisingly polite tone, using a lot of the typical nothing-words PR or human resources officials often do, bu sounding very much like he actually means them.     "Ah, you must be our our external experts. It's a pleasure to meet you, then. I apologize that your business here couldn't be on a more positive note; one that would better represent our city in its usual light. I'm sure you must have some kind of interest beyond pleasure, or typical business, however, if you're still here. If you have any suggestions regarding the next critical actions our security forces will be taken, you're welcome to give them, and especially any indicates of personal aid. Any information you think would be valuable in fully analyzing how this sort of thing could possibly have happened in brought daylight, and how we might prevent further escalation of this incident, would also be most welcome. It is no longer a matter for the tabloids and courtroom when lives have already been taken, and the functioning of Ghirapur has been compromised."     The Alchemical finds that the actual police didn't have a lot to go on. The tracks he can pick up around the room are acceptably constrained to a small number of paths that leave little disturbed, and most details have probably been photographed by some means rather than manually fiddled with. There are of course no signs that any windows, never mind the door, were forced in any way, or even /opened/. The ice on the desk has been hacked open to get at the files, but none of them have been stolen, and obviously nothing was robbed for valuables. It seems entirely a spectacle killing, roughly around the time the consul was writing a letter, but didn't get far enough to make it apparently who to or what about.     The chair, the desk, and the floor appear to be pretty much collateral damage from a burst of supernaturally intense and lingering cold. He can pretty easily tell that it wasn't cold exposure that killed him though. If the guy was remotely human, there should be basically no blood left inside him at all, and there are no signs of external wounds even close to sufficient to eject it all like that. Even his bones are oddly brittle and riddled with surreal erosion. Analyzing it deeply, the worst of the pattern looks to form the shape of a hand print, as in someone had grabbed him by the face and he had shortly ceased being able to move from his seat after.
Priscilla	He might not feel comfortable analyzing it for long. Using magic to scout out the details seems to add up in slightly weird ways, like getting uncomfortable logic errors similar to missing a stair in the dark. Occasonal bits of ghost data or miniscule corruptions have to be corrected for, even looking at a distance.     Patrolling around the halls, Baan gets around to Yuuki as well. "You'll find nobody with 'magic powers' here, at least. Mage talent is exceptionally rare here, and widely considered obsolete. An unstable, outdated form of using aether, without properly control or reprodusible potential. The Consulate keeps close records of those born with the power, and they rarely turn up to any remarkable ends. Of course I've searched through them myself, however it isn't merely 'ice' we've had to deal with." He then fixes the vampire with a piercing, calculating look, dropping some of that rather pleasant 'British butler' politeness. "Come now. I expect that someone so high up in the Concord has something pressing to say if they've come out all this way. I'm well aware of your faction's . . . entanglements, here."
Priscilla	THE GHETTO:     August's question is immediately met with an almost lackadaisical, but frequently repeated answer: "Preferably, not at all!" 'Rules' don't seem to be big on the list here; it is an extremely impromptu operation between established friends and associates in a quiet rebellion that hasn't killed anyone so far, and aims to keep it that way, whipped up on the spot in response to a very short-lived window. No matter who he bugs, nobody has a solid plan for what should go down in a confrontation they're hoping to avoid in the first place. The most solid response he gets: "Wing it!"     Nobody seems to be interception transmissions of any kind, as far as Kyoko can tell. The Consulate seems to be entirely content with shutting off precise branches of aether pipeline, not so much as a weaponized way to brutally suppress people they don't like, but in a clearly unfolding pattern of skimming the distribution chart here and there, conveniently putting out the lights in places nobody much cares about, without a lot of relevance, or for a few key troublemakers, and redoubling the flow in places closes to the Spire, especially the Spire itself, come to look at it. The situation hasn't gone full Orwell yet, though she does encounter a number of gilded, man-sized and roughly man-shaped magical robots patrolling around the streets in ordinary fashion, like wind up cops. Apparently, a bunch of rebels without Aether can't really get up to much here. That might be the point. It's hard to affect political change when you're banned from using electricity, more or less.     The topography is also screamingly obvious from measuring the flow of that stuff. If she feels like monitoring the surrounding area, leading a convoy of normies through it is child's play, easily able to dodge the robots and occasional 'squad cars' of armoured men riding glowing, four-wheeled vehicles, trailing Consulate banners. The pipelines grow steadily thicker as they approach the nexus of pipes and wires that span out from the central hub in every direction, where security begins to grow appreciably thick, including a couple of airships very high up, and a number of tiny, autonomous helicopter-things (those 'thopters' that seem to have a billion and one designs).
Priscilla	'Renegade Prime' is a little surprising: a well-built woman getting past her middle age, with fiery red hair streaked with grey, and fair skin toughened up by years on the right end of a torch, starting to wrinkle. She spends some time fussing over Riva's tank harness like a mother chaperoning a field trip, before finally giving a more concrete answer to some questions. "Always good to see more faces for the cause. It's all too easy to look the other way when it isn't your district on the 'prioritization of resources' list, huh? You can just call me Pia. 'Renegade Prime' is what you call me outside of our little circle, yeah? This is pretty simple: we have big plans, and they don't go anywhere without a lot of power. We have maybe only until the end of today to get a big score and scurry off back home. After that, they'll start watching the pipelines more closely, just you watch. If we get enough though, it won't matter. Do a good job, and we'll have some left over to donate to a benefactor of ours. You might want to meet him."     A clap on the shoulder is what one gets for fighting concerns. "If it clanks, scrap it. If it bleeds, don't cause a mess. We want hearts and minds, not terror. Don't be as bad as the Consulate wants everyone to believe we are." That might be easier said than done however. There is no easy approach to the Aether hub that /isn't/ guarded, and the biggest pipes worth anyone's time are within close response range. It's really a decision of whether to break in under aerial surveillance and past automated security, of the scout robots and laser tripwires and electric fences sense, and intend to get out, or whether to settle down on a big juicy vein and tap it until they get pinpointed and swarmed. The actual process is easy enough at least. The pipes have various ports to plug in hoses for the exact purpose of diverting resources or relieving pressure. It's pretty braindead.     Either way, the second the pressure drops, some canny engineer figures it out, and it doesn't take long for word to be passed to key authority figures in the Spire. One of them is absolutely Dovin Baan, who excuses himself as if he's taking a cellphone call, muttering something about 'compliance officers' into his earpiece.
Theo Morrison	"Director Kuran, I presume," Theo says a bit theatrically, with a little motion like a hat-tip and a head-tilt. Kickotron raises a tiny metal hand and waves. "Yeah, it'd be kinda weird if I didn't show up, huh? Maybe giant magic cities are just my 'thing' now. Between this and Ravnica..." He trails off, then shrugs, giving Eye a glance and letting him take a look around. "Anyway, it's good to see you. Helps knowing we aren't on opposite sides of this thing." Probably, he thinks. Dovin Baan shows up, and Theo has a goofy grin on his face that it takes conscious effort to remove. He clears his throat. "Yeah. I'm Theo. Theo Morrison." He fishes out the badge with the whole 'anti-counterfeit division' part on it and all. It's an impressive piece of workmanship. So are the bits of artifice he's wearing under his coat, many of which are for channeling mana. He must be from a place not too far removed from Kaladesh. "At the moment, I'm interested in going over the scene a second time to see if what happened matches with any known phenomena from offworld. I've been to more than a few planes, and if anyone particularly high-profile from one of 'em did this..." Theo examines the scene -- from a distance. Stepping off a public thoroughfare, Theo makes a pinching and stretching motion in mid-air like he would with a smartphone screen, opening a window-like viewing pane to the office. He immediately winces and kind of regrets it. His expression stony, he flicks the viewpoint around, going over the place with the kind of practiced skill that all his time working as some kind of supernatural investigator helped cultivate. Then, he opens up his mystical senses, feeling around carefully to try and get an idea of what sort of thing /did/ this. The magical equivalent of missing a step in the dark strikes him as... familiar, somehow. Theo lets Dovin Baan go off to answer his call. He catches wind of it, frowning, and opens a second one looking down from overhead outside. He wants to spot the officers leaving, and then follow them remotely to the scene that way. It turns out Theo is strangely familiar with Ghirapur and how the people in it operate. Weird!
All-Seeing Eye	Baan's invitation for aid doesn't fall on deaf ears. "You may count on the Paladins to keep the peace and maintain stability, however we can," he says with a slow nod. With a hand placed upon his chest, he adds, "Myself, especially. To that end, I'd like a list of everyone within your organization who might have had access to this room. Though our culprit could be an extremely skilled infiltrator, I'm inclined to share Director Kuran's suspicion at this stage in the investigation."      While Baan moves to handle his call, Eye sticks with Theo and observes the Planeswalker's efforts at remote viewing. "Chevalier Morrison," begins Eye. "Tell me about some of these suspects of yours." He gestures towards the screen with the office. "'Outdated' though it may be, that certainly seems the work of sorcery." Waiting until Baan is out of earshot, he adds...      "And the victim's face bears a distinct handprint. The violent nature of the explosion does seem concurrent with 'unstable,' 'hard to control' energy, at a glance... does it not?" He gives Theo a humorless smile.
August Kohler	Pia gets a slightly warm smile and a nod from August as she seems to be a pretty good leader-type with the charisma to handle things, as the teenager prepares. "Got it. Will be as nonlethal as I can." He checks the footage Kyoko sends. "Also, I can absolutely wing it." That gets an even brighter smile from him, as he prepares to launch. August's suggestion is to get the closest, juiciest vein they can find so that they can be in-and-out. Staren gets a nod to his presence, a 'hey', and a general invitation to be part of the plan of attack. "I'll focus on offense, you guys do what you do best. We get in, grab as much of it as we can, and get out. Play distraction for the security. Sound good?" If so, August will lead the charge so he can be first in line to fight when it comes down to it, once they reach the pipes they're going to use. He waits to summon his Persona, but keeps the mirrored bracelet at eye-level. He might look a little weird to the rebels - a nineteen year old with only a gun, a knife, and a bracelet he keeps staring at - but August inwardly hopes that he has a reputation for being dangerous by now. He's still smiling to himself even now. Someone actually told him to wing it, and that's what he does best.
Riva Banari	Riva gives Renegade Prime a thumbsup and big smile as she finishes fussing over the harness. She doesn't seem all that inquisitive at the moment. Actually, Riva mostly wants to see how this goes down in action. There are some things you can only learn by doing and seeing. Also, just getting it over with so she can find something nice to do would be cool. Still, the urging to keep things nonlethal is noted. Riva is okay with this. LATER, she's hooking the canister to the pipe, getting that done quivk before she moves forward into whatever fortifications that are going to get set up, standing right in the middle of the opening so she can try to force them to go through her to get to the rebels. There's just one small problem, but she won't mention it. It's not her job to think of everything.
Staren	So, either they can sneak/fight their way in to the 'power plant' as it were to fill up more quickly, or hook up to the tubes, which will take longer and still draw the cops. Staren considers this problem -- there doesn't seem to be any way to stealth in. So is there some way to make a chosen point better to defend? Well, actually...     Staren shares his idea with the others, then runs over to Renegade Prime. "I have a device that can quickly deploy crude fortifications. You know this city -- Where's a pipe in a good location to fortify that's probably not being watched?"     Once they arrive at the chosen spot, Staren uses the matter manipulator to start setting up an impromptu bunker out of concrete and metal plates, taking suggestions from anyone knowledgeable about fortifications, or to accomodate defenders' needs. Depending on what's under the streets here, he may even be able to include an escape tunnel to any available spacious sewer network or abandoned subway tunnel or the like. He also sets out several drones ready to help target from the air.     When it comes down to a fight, Staren offers SMGs with shock-gel bullets and underbarrel quick-hardening-foam rocket launchers to any who want them -- Between the special SMGs and the weapons built into his armor, Staren can divide attacks between hard and squishy targets without intentionally killing anyone.
Kyoko Takada	Kyoko sets her scanning to pull everything back, process, and upload to a relatively ordinary, unlisted website, the locator string for which she transmits over the Watch frequency. For any non-Watch involved... well, maybe they'll get access soon, if they need it. Possibly not, if August can just make the calls on where to move without letting others in on the secret of just how much Kyoko is seeing.     It's not paranoia if someone's actually after you.     Keying in to a slightly broader-reaching frequency, she pings, "Hello, my services have been retained for this venture. And I am about to attempt to suborn some local surveillance. If it succeeds, I can clear out an area. If it fails, I will attract a great deal of attention to a place you're not at." From the perspective of the Renegades, this can't fail. But for her...     Mentally, she goes over the series of low-profile defensive options available to her, such as they are. If things go south, she'll have to get out quickly, and there are limits to any contingency plan. There was a limited window in which to prepare for all of this, too. On reflection, maybe this isn't such a good idea... on the other hand, she just said she could and would do something. Upholding a matter of pride is worth taking some measured risks.     Steeling herself, yet getting goosebumps anyway, Kyoko makes her way over to one of the mechanical patrollers, getting in close enough proximity to drop lag to zero and directly affect it with the snaking, glowing data cables conjured directly from her focused imagination, seeking purchase and penetration, then communication, arriving in first like a light caress upon a picklock, and then a demanding flood of orders as her grey-legal cracking servers connect and put to use her by-now-significant experience in alien magitech systems. The technomagical toolkit looks for a way in to the local law's patrol network, and from there, to alter the patrols she's since been observing, redirecting resources away from the Renegades' loot.     Win or lose, she's going to have to get back out of here pretty quick. A virus doesn't require supervision.
Yuuki Kuran	Yuuki gives her best 'tiny, officious smile'. It's pretty good. She has the 'aloof, just slightly judgemental' part of being someone who matters down. "Is it Inspector now, Theo? Come now, I'm not on direct business. Titles are..." She sighs, emptying her lungs as she really gets into it. "Burdensome. They linger on tongues, and waste breath. Very few matter." She brightens back up. "I'll let you get to work." She's then spoken to by Dovin Baan, who gets a pleasant if distant smile, her arms coming up to cross and her weight shifting to one side, casually listening to his accusations of POTENTIAL FOUL PLAY OR ULTERIOR MOTIVE. "If there was external foul play, it would be useful to consider all the causes. But that's very useful to know. Do you suspect artifice, then? I was briefed before I came on the very basics, but I'm sure you have a better handle on the situation." Her hand moves to gesture out, her smile flickering and fading to a flat, unwarm texture as Baan drops his own Cultured Butler act. "The only thing I have to say, Minister, is that I expected more from a man of your stature and intellect. If we are entangled as you seem to imply, then you would have done your own research." She brightens like a sunbeam at him, though her words turn a just-past sweet tone. "And if you did, you know that I enjoy helping people, and I enjoy making the world - all worlds - just a little bit better. Today, I am here, because I thought your crisis seemed to be just the thing to cheer me up with some adventuring, to help people. Your guards at the door let me in. So, Minister-" She emphasises his title. "How do you think I could be of assistance in this dire, and internal, matter?" She tilts her head just incrementally, now looking merely bemused, like a cat pawing at a yarnball.
Priscilla	THE AETHER HUB: Tapping into an Aether line, as said, is the easy part. The substance is extremely volatile, but not quite in the 'explodes and kills everyone if mishandled' sense. It's rather a sense of seeming "not quite there", like it's fluidity and pressure within the pipes are mathematical artifacts of its strange behaviour, in the same way that light technically has mass and exerts pressure on the things it strikes. It'd be utterly impossible to just scoop out with one's hands or squirt into a water bottle, and there are surprisingly sophisticated enchantments at play on the tanks and fuel lines which the locals appear to take for granted.     Under the guidance of the people showing up who are actually experts at this kind of thing, and also actually armed, they settle on a cross junction where five major pipelines go over and under and around each other without combining or touching. It's unfortunately exposed from equally as many directions, leaving Staren to drop impromptu fortifications in several places at the same time, stretching his prefabricated resources thin.     Kyoko's crack into the system works. Though the constructs are powered by stuff that is really very bizarre, the systems that run them aren't incredibly exotic. It seems that when it comes to the state, standardization, simplicity, modularity, and reliability win out as they always do, over individual hand craftsmanship and all the quirks it introduces. This successfully diverts all regular patrols away from whe Renegade group juicing their tanks like adult mosquitoes with extremely libertarian views, giving them a long period of eerie calm to fill up with.     That makes things better and worse. Better, in the sense that they have that big head start. Worse, in that the actual people forces being dispatched quickly realize something is wrong, and the request for aid immediately escalates. The equivalent of magical pagers begin going off on people still in the Spire, buzzing and flashing on the bands and pins they're integrated into, like multiple rows of Pentagon officials all taking their phones in staggered sequence. Baan's orders become much more quick, and then wrap up very abruptly. From any given window, those inside can see ranks of robots breaking off from guard of the Spire, closely followed by silver armoured soldiers with something approaching 'riot shields' and glaives following distantly enough to use the former as a physical screen.
Priscilla	When Theo follows them, he'll run straight into the hub at which the Renegades are working. An officer captain, mostly identifiable by his blue ribbon and crest, immediately starts with "We have you surrounded! Drop your equipment, step out from behind the barricade /slowly/, and surrender to custody peacefully! You are in the middle of committing a capital offense against the-"     'Renegade Prime' makes the ill-advised move of climbing over someone to stick her head out of cover and yell "Since when did wanting a working stove become a capital offense?!" she jeers. The crowd of punks and rebels behind her immediately begin hooting and hollering, psyched up the minute she starts talking. "Hell, since when did /petty theft/ become a capital offense, you asinine crony! You know that's supposed to mean 'grievous betrayal of your country', right? Sort of like you're doing right now!"     The officer turns back with a snarl of "That's it. I'm done with this. Take them all in by force." and a wave of his hand. The automatons all line up in sequence and then begin marching in steadily from all sides. A number of them spray the barricade with pulses of blue-white 'electricity', shredding concrete and metal from the structure itself, but where Renegades pop up to throw everything from bricks to extremely slipshod pipe bombs at them, direct hits mostly send them flying and knock them out. Others start climbing up with saws and torches to physically cut the barriers apart.     The humans present ranks of shields at each junction to prevent anyone from escaping, but soon have to deal with the Renegades releasing swarms of little thopters into the air, which dive bomb them with various workshop tools repurposed into zapping and bludgeoning instruments. That seems to further aggravate them though, and they're entirely free to use their actual weapons to smash the little vehicles out of the air, splattering the meagre contents of their fuel tanks over the stone, and closing in behind the robot cannon fodder in dramatic stomping lockstep.
Priscilla	THE SPIRE:     While Theo had time to scan, the wall he runs into is that the ability used to kill the consul didn't leave much in the way of lingering traces. There's no 'mana signature', no sign of spellcraft, no real imprint or distortion in the locality. It eviscerated the man in utterly inexplicable and apparently spontaneous ways, largely to his internal parts outwards as if by invisible manifold teeth, and then vanished. The sense of uneasiness from the corpse is almost like some kind of vague 'Basilisk'; some forgotten instinct recognizing the signs and warning him away from it, rather than something conscious. The ice is remarkable largely in being obviously abnormal, but seemingly not sustained by magic, very slowly evaporating rather than melting; Ex. rather than Su. or Sp.     All-Seeing Eye only gets a brief answer before things go to pot. "I'm glad to hear that, 'Warden', was it? I admit I've only had the time to perform token research on your cause during the last few hectic hours, so my apologies if my assessment of your rank is incorrect. We currently have no mages on record for crimes worse than misdemeanours, save one listed as MIA, but though her modus operandi may be exceptionally violent, she is a pyromancer; not exactly what you see in there. Frankly, I have personal doubts that anyone from Ghirapur is capable of what we're presented with here. Even intimate knowledge of the Spire wouldn't leave no evidence of having been here whatsoever. That sort of technology doesn't exist." It is a meaningful sentence.     The vedalkan's expression, as if it were somehow possible, becomes colder and more aloof when Yuuki puts on her responsible nice adult voice. "I suppose you would be at the liberty to share a great deal more information than I currently have access to, regarding your 'Partners', but forgive me for assuming that you have no intention of sharing it. Let us be clear: repelling you at the entrance is exactly the sort of dignification I will not allow. It is responding to an act of terror with a statement of reprisal -an intent to return hostility in measure. While there are many who are pressing to act in such a way already, I would see cooler heads prevail. Unfortunately, I am in a distinct minority. Humans certainly have a great capacity to become emotional and irrational over matters such as these."     "If you wish to be of 'assistance', you could do the very well same with your own people, could you not? I've been informed that there has been a disturbance of a convenient nature near one of our major civil pipelines, and I would be disappointed to discover a related plan behind it." He relents very briefly, changing his tone in a curious way. "Disappointed ethically, of course, and perhaps disappointed at such an aimless and small second move."
August Kohler	They're in a terrible situation as reinforcements come in. A lot of reinforcements. August inhales and exhales sharply, considering what to do...but Pia's confidence and ability to fight back against The Man reinvigors him, as the redhead steps forward and reaches the mirrored bracelet up to eye-level. "Persona!" In a flash of blue energy, the Tin Soldier, a robot soldier covered in burn scars with a gun for a leg, is summoned. The Persona mimes a roar, taking point in front of August and those behind them, as August speaks up. "My name is August Kohler of the Watch." He takes several seconds to see if that name sinks in at all, as the Tin Soldier's gun-leg begins to fill with fire. "I'll give you one chance to back down yourselves unless you want to deal with us. Shutting down the people's power is unacceptable, and we will not tolerate this. For the time being, though, I recommend you take a step back, unless you want to get burned." The Tin Soldier lets out a spray of flames, aimed at the ground in several points where the officers and robots are marching inwards. The flames build up and explode upwards, creating great big walls of fire in an attempt to choke the soldiers back/make sure they can't continue to box them in. August can't cover everywhere, though, and definitely doesn't close up their most likely exit. Instead, he's forcing them to move around, or hoping that dumb robots walk into the flames and get melted for their troubles. If any robots survive the flames or come around in the blindspots, the Tin Soldier rotates, moving to try and melt them into slag with more bursts of flame. And while it's doing that, August shouts out to the rebels. "How much longer? We need to get out of here A-SAP! Banari, Staren, it's show time!"
Staren	None of the renegades accepted guns? Staren is annoyed at how /quickly/ the situation is deteriorating. These... these rebels have never actually been in a fight, have they? The officer's sentiment of 'That's it. I'm done with this.' echoes through his mind.     Staren's own drones take to the air -- some as small as flies, others quadcoptors the width of an outstretched hand. Rather than harassing, they keep their distance. Staren drops the SMG to hang by its shoulder strap and grabs the two nearest rebels, handing them what look like a pistol and a rifle. "Just point them out the windows and keep pulling the trigger!" He himself positions one of his shoulder missile racks to fire out one of the bunker windows and lets fly with a salvo of three mini-missiles.     The drones in the air guide his minimissiles to groups of robots to detonate in plasma fireballs. It looks like August has a similar idea! The micromissiles from his commandeered 'assistants' are basically guided kinetic penetrators with explosive tips to help pick off robots that he and August fail to melt. They only have about ten shots each, but hopefully the sustained offense will buy them time while the attackers try to deal with guided projectiles.
Kyoko Takada	There are only so many ways to build a self-consistent robot, mass-produced and maintainable by the lowest bidder, no matter what kind of electricity-analogue powers its fascimile of logic circuits. Kyoko spares a little more time, after her initial success, to get some deep scans pulled out and into storage, where she can look at them later and, if she has time, craft some further exploits. It probably won't come up, but it rarely hurts to have documentation.     Looking at her map and seeing the conveniently obvious signatures of what may as well be an army descending on the position of the poorly-organized thieves, the organizationally-minded corporate worker is so rude as to click her tongue. Keying in to the radio only afterward, "It doesn't look like they noticed my entry point, but I should be leaving soon, regardless. I can't do much about the living troops closing in on you besides tell you in detail how screwed your position is." After a moment, "I'd recommend focusing on an exit, but they'd just follow most of those people home, wouldn't they?" It doesn't really look like those guys had a plan to get out with their gains, ill-gotten or otherwise.     Searching through what she pulled from the patrolbot, Kyoko tries to find any built-in programming for keywords like "rescue," "capture," or even "transport." A peacekeeper force of the unliving has to at least be used for retrieving sufficiently important people from accidents and disasters, especially with all this volatile industry around... right? Assuming she finds something of the sort, she goes ahead and registers every one of the living lawmen in the area of the pipeline altercation as a target in urgent of rescue and safe transportation to the nearest medical facilities, following up with spammed orders to all surviving machines in the area to carry out a mass rescue op.     That done, one way or another, and Kyoko Takada still has to leave. She does so, at a casual walk, continuing to record and not-quite gawk.
Theo Morrison	"It's something all right," Theo asides to Yuuki. "You're right, though. It doesn't mean a whole lot -- unless the people around you buy into it. I don't think I really gotta ask you to do that, though." He smiles, shrugging. "Catch me when it's less gruesome out, though; we can hang out sometime. I'll grill. It'll be good." He gets back to work. Theo raises a hand in greeting to Eye. "Yo." He's sweeping the point of view in the office around like a camera drone. The one following the officers flicks from point to point off to the side, a chase cam he's 'operating' almost offhandedly. "It's not the /best/ idea to guess like that offhand, but I've got a pretty good lead." He glances off to one side, observing Dovin Baan and Yuuki moving off, shifting subjects a little as he returns Eye's flat smile briefly. "Fill you in later. Right now..." "That handprint... can you get that on film? Maybe more closely document all that than the Consulate guys did?" He nods at the scene. "'Unstable, hard to control energy' sounds right at first blush, but I'm not getting any of that. There's usually a sort of fingerprint from a mage that flings around any kind of mana to do whatever happened here, and there isn't any of that." The viewpoint pans around. He gets it closer to the ice. "That's not melting, though, it's just... evaporating. Is there anything damaged in the vicinity that can account for that? Maybe a, a cooling device or something he was working on?" The remote viewscreen pans over to the body again, and Theo suppressed a shudder. "Does that make you feel really uneasy, or is it just me?" he asks, in a slightly lower voice. "Not... creeped out by the violence-uneasy. Like... lizard brain telling me there's a predator-uneasy." Theo pulls himself away from that scene, flicking the other viewing window towards the site of the conflict. He watches from a corner, panning it around the room. From the other side, the keen-eyed might spot a distortion in the air near the ceiling like a piece of bent glass moving along the edge of the room. It's hard to spot, though, especially with humans' predisposition for not looking up. "These guys... a renegade attack, now? It's -- ah, dammit." Theo taps a band of curled plastic around his wrist and then a little earpiece, calling up a contact list on his glasses. "I know some of those idiots. Sec."
Riva Banari	Riva's been basically sitting back and letting things flow. She's not here to inflict her social views on the world. She's here to do a job. Objective 1: Get Aether. Objective 2: Get the people the hell out. Bonus Objective: Don't kill people. She sighs as the officer loses his crap and goes full offense. "Okay chum. You asked for it." She says, as she stands in the middle of the blockade, being the 'softest' position to assault, surely. That's about when she pulls put the hammer. As she informs the others of what in her opinion needs to be done, the large, anchor-like Ajoran Cross is drawn out of a ripple in the air, a golden light emanating from the spatial distortion while she pulls out the large, repurposed holy symbol, and promptly brings it up in a twohanded grip to slam it into the ground. The weapon glows with a red-orange light before it hits before her, blasting out a cone of energy to roll over the front line, slamming into them with a crash. "Gotta get through me first!" She calls out. "You can back off any time you want, how much are you gonna spend?"
Priscilla	The Aether pipeline nexus turns into restrained chaos very rapidly. It's literally only Staren's fortifications around the junction that allow the fighting to happen at the pace that it does. When the walls begin crumbling down under combined assault, he'll notice the pace of fire slowing down and starting to become much more directly and carefully aimed. Nobody wants to shoot the crucial infrastructure, and it's quite possible the Renegades didn't want to encourage that either.     Not a lot of choice for it now though. The couple he foists guns on do their best to scramble with the firearms and figure them out on the fly, yelling rambo style in mixed exhilaration and terror as they fire indiscriminately into the tightly packed ranks. Holding up big ranks of silver shields that certainly aren't just plain metal, the gel bullets don't really do much except moderately slow the soldiers down, though. Rows of plasma missiles detonating and wiping out the entire front line of robots to a couple of sides gives reason for pause, where the front row suddenly drops down to a kneel and the second row starts bringing out actual, real weapons. Three man teams drop in three-pronged and three-legged portable emplacements crackling with Aether chain lightning, which is turned on Staren's drones to immediately lethal effect.     The officer can be heard yelling orders along the lines of escalating the level of force deemed 'minimum' to a level. With the immediate drone threat taken care of, the soldiers bear down long polearms or wrist-mounted pulse weapons and then begin swiftly closing in at a controlled charge, willing to climb up the fortification rubble and pipe fittings to shoot and beat the crap out of Staren as the most heavily armed presence on the field at the moment.     Riva takes the vanguard position where they can most easily get in, and a massive blast of force sends the initial wave flying back like silvery dominoes, pausing to close ranks and renew the assault rather than just scattering in like mooks, attempting to take her on with multiple shocking glaives at the same time. At that point, they don't even slow when August pops up to demonstrate the Tin Soldier, only pouring blasts of pulse energy into the psychic construct, until it blasts flame into the surroundings.     /That/ prompts an immediate and unexpected reaction. The entire regiment /immediately/ backs off, and the robots stop short of trudging into the flames altogether, starting to run out of batteries with which to continue shooting. Someone from the ranks yells "Pyromancer!", another yells "I knew it!", and a wave of high, strained yelling travels back to the rear guard.
Priscilla	It's at that point the constructs become /intensely/ concerned with the Kaladeshi SWAT team's personal safety. Many of them turn about and begin clicking adroitly across the pavement back into the shielded ranks, spouting "Please evacuate the premises." "Sir you are in danger." "Please evacuate-" "Sir-" "Emergency services will be present shortly." "Remain calm." Someone yells out "I /am/ emergency services you piece of junk!" and gets precisely nowhere before the robots start playing red rover and trying to keep the soldiers out.     Renegade Prime seems to be the one with her shit together. When the soldiers are on the fallback, she motions to the Renegades carrying nothing but sackfuls of parts and tools, who pass them up to her like artillerymen. She dumps them quickly and tears the zippers open, twisting on a complicated mechanical arm piece on one hand, and then working her magic. Literally. Parts float out of the bags on their own, sorting themselves and emerging in specific arrays that are fit together by thought and then rapidly torched and fused and bolted together by clusters of tiny lasers and flames and mana streams on extruded arms coming from her gauntlet.     Within literal seconds, low double digits at an estimate, she has an armed thopter flying into the air to replace Staren's drones, firing its own crackling bolts of force back. Another twenty seconds and a second thopter goes out. Fifteen and a third. She slips into a borderline trance, using her opposite hand for wrenches and saws manually. A skittering spider leaps out and runs madly through the flames, arriving at the soldiers just in time to explode into webs of sticky vines. A pair of cars on three wheels swerve from around the pipes, ramping off collapsed barricade and ramming into the formation. The things she spins out almost seem random for the shapes she sees in the eclectic assortments of parts she pulls out at once, working with them like hands at scrabble. A feeling of relief might accompany the realization that she is actually aiming all of them at the same direction the Elites are trying to escape from, figuring out the strategy easily.     "This is too much!" a junior officer yells. "Contact the Head of Compliance!" another growls. The senior officer hits his line, and that name -Baral- can be heard. A shadow passes over the assembly as a smaller airship, sort of like a VTOL blimp, dives low and fast over the rooftops. Wire lines uncoil and drop out, sending down rappel lines of fresh troops, but one particular figure just jumps straight out, barely bending his knees when she slams into the pavement.     Heavily swathed in a red cloak and full face hood, largely only baring a metal grille for his eyes and ornate pauldrons and wrist devices, it is impossible to define any features beneath. The fact that the silver shields shirk away from him is probably bad enough however, even before he strides up to the line of impassable fire, slashes his right hand through it, and physically rips the fire to pieces, tearing it into strands of glowing red 'threads' as if untraveled by an expert 'pull'. His obscured gaze is locked entirely on August, climbing over the wreckage and offhandedly booting a Renegade who charges him back over the wall. The Renegades take this opportunity to start disengaging their taps and picking up the wounded, trying to run for the temporary exit. Someone tries to shake Renegade Prime out of her quicksmithing trance. She's down to nine seconds.
Yuuki Kuran	Theo gets a rather-un-princess-like double fingerguns before she regards Dovin Baan more directly. Yuuki's consideration-face cants back the other way slowly, passing through verticality as it does, and her hair is shifted by an idle hand back behind her shoulders neatly, even though it anime-rearranges itself to be extra strand-y and hanging at just-a bit-tactically-disheveled that shows either no work at all but perfect genes goes into it, or waaaaaaaay too much time is paid to it. "Minister Baan. Please, pay me some respect and I will be able to respond in kind. Were I here on business, I would not waste your limited time with petty games. I'd just have someone else waste your subordinate's time and we'd both waste money. I don't think either of us really care about a legal battle. There was a murder, and a revolution." Yuuki shrugs, her eyes linger closed as she gestures a 'what can you do' flourish. "If the people we are in entirely mundane and boring legal battle drudgery with have a string of firebombings and murders happen, that looks bad for us, doesn't it? It looks like we're doing it - so if we're not, then good faith and consideration is what is called for." She opens her eyes and looks at the professional vedalken. "The acts of an individual are not the acts of an organization. I would not so quickly presume you spoke for the entire Consulate." She glances at Theo, even if there's a wall between them, and frowns. "Oh no. If he knows them, then *I* most likely know them. Hopefully we can avoid a real issue - I may have the time but I do not want to spend the patience."
All-Seeing Eye	Eye nods, smugly smiling and tapping his temple with an index finger. 'Can you get that on film?' "I can, and I have." They don't call him All-Seeing Eye for nothing, y'know. He listens to Theo's explanation on the nature of sorcery--he seems to be an expert, and his testimony is given due weight. The Exalt nods his head, rubbing his chin.      "So, it's likely not sorcery," he says. as for the mention of a predator? "Rest assured, even if your... lizard brain is correct, I have constant 360-degree vision, ultrasonic hearing, and echolocation. It would have to be--" His eyes narrow as something strikes him. He pauses, speaking the next words with less of his usual arrogance. "...both soundless and invisible."      If their assassin is possessed of those attributes, it would certainly explain why the victim doesn't appear to have even made an effort to escape. While Theo attempts to defuse the situation by speaking to the rebels, Eye continues the investigation. His means of doing so may further unnerve his fellow Paladin. He holds a hand over his eye. When he removes it, the eye is there, standing upon his hand, held up by spindly, artificial optic nerves.      The drone crawls up Eye's arm, down his back, all the way down to the floor, and goes back into the murder scene. There, through his control, it peers through the files which were hacked open. Specifically, he looks through, and literally looks -through- the office for any signs of what could have caused the ice. As the drone enters again, he remembers the feeling of discomfort he felt upon entering. So, Theo felt that discomfort, too. "There was... one thing," mentions the Warden idly, as Theo attempts to put out fires. "About the crime scene. We might have to discuss it later." He gestures to the fighting on one of Theo's monitors.
August Kohler	The shots of pulse energy rip into the Tin Soldier's armor, messing it up and causing August psychic feedback and pain as he stumbles backwards and clutches his head, but the reaction to his Persona is both useful and makes him well with pride...and confusion, because he didn't expect /that/. Renegade Prime's manuevers, however, also have him keeping ready. She's in some form of trance doing stuff with parts, which leads August to bring up his radio to send out plans. While he's doing that, though, a scary looking guy drops down, comes up to his flames, and just /tears them apart/, causing August to visibly go 'oh shit'. The Tin Soldier mimes a roar and moves forward as August physically moves himself to be in Renegade Prime's path, and then, speaks up. "So, are we going to fight, or are you going to let me off with a warning, officer?" While August's intention is for it to sound really cool and slick, he's not that awesome, and the worry and tension can be clearly heard in his voice. If the red-cloaked man moves to attack at all or come at the Renegades, August flicks his hand up, moving the Tin Soldier's gun-leg to aim full-force on the guy and try and set him on fire and push him back with a wave of flames. August's justification is simple. This guy's clearly a badass, he can definitely survive a wave of flames, right?
Riva Banari	The initial response is pretty great. Riva smiles at the situation, confident... But shocking glaives are a pain n the butt. Riva tries to parry them and keep them off, but they dip into her guard and deliver crackling blasts into her, causing her to grunt and yield a couple steps initially. "Well. This is no joke." She mutters, shaking out a numb arm. Thankfully, the fireblast gets their attention and an opening to force them back, and she gets back into position. "GUYS, WE NEEDED TO LEAVE LIKE FIVE MINUTES AGO!" She yells over her shoulder. Yes, she's exaggerating. But not by much. "HURRY UP!" This is because what happens next is exactly what she expected to happen next. The first assaulters were the normal guys. There's always room for them to escalate. And escalate they do, as the red-cloaked man arrives. "Wow." She mutters. "This guy's gonna be trouble." It's even worse when he walks right up and cuts right /through/ the fire. "Yep. Trouble." She nods, and then turns towards Baral. With a spin, she rips a shotgun out of her Agarthan storage space and levels it at the cloaked man, firing a blastwave of energized shot at the man (yes, she has a lot of cone attacks, sue her), following it up with turning to shoulder-charge the man. He might be able to cut through magic, but Riva's still strong, tough, and possibly able to handle the issue with some rushdown, maybe luck out into a corner trap and open him up on a mixup if she's lucky. She's probably not going to be that lucky.
Staren	The rebels decide NOW is the time to use the gel bullets, against shields, rather than the rocket launchers for robots. 2/10 would not work with in combat again! Staren prepares to fire another salvo of missiles but freaking magic lightning takes down all his drones, meaning he has to expose himself to aim. And then a lot of things start happening at once!     The makeshift bunker is collapsing. Staren tries to back just out of melee range, pushing rebels back behind him as he gets an incoming call from Theo. With fire focused on him he's forced to reveal he can fly and take to the air, desperately dodging in three dimensions as various attacks start tearing into his forcefield and buffet him about as miscommunications occur re: what the Concord is doing here. They will have to talk more in a moment!     Staren is about to just run for it when the police and the robots change their behavior, shouting about a pyromancer and malfunctioning. Now's their chance to escape! Staren puts his armor's strength to use helping carry wounded away, and gets out with the rebels while the getting's good!
Priscilla	Dovin Baan has to interrupt his conversation with Yuuki ever so briefly as a certain notice reaches his ear. Doing the 'I have to take this gesture', his expression further sours, followed by a despondent "Did he really? Well I suppose there's no stopping him now. Endeavour to make certain that no citizens are unduly harmed. I will not tolerate- yes, Renegades are still citizens, officer, and I will not have my instructions second guessed. Contain the damage I am sure will shortly ensue, and prioritize minimizing loss of life over arrest, both your own and theirs. We will not have an incident made of this. Do I make myself clear?"     After a brief pause that can only be an affirmative, he turns back to Yuuki, looking simultaneously sobered and also more critical, like his weird red-pink eyes are boring into her brain. "I apologize for any lack of respect I may have afforded you, Director. Please understand that the current circumstances are less than ideal for a diplomatic exchange; that is precisely why I would like to see those circumstances be made more ideal for one. Precisely because I am not the entirety of the Consulate, my influence is finite, and my ability to steer events towards a sensible and productive conclusion is limited. There are those who do not respond rationally or with a level head to actions and perceived declarations such as this. They will vote for action based out of fear or anger, and the unfortunate flaw of democracy is that we consider the majority the best informed."     "I will have to pick an appropriate time and place to bring this matter to the Grand Consul. He is entirely capable of great logical insight, but also prone to bouts of . . . irrationality. It is a complex matter to address. In 'consideration', I will make certain our lines of communication are left open for any further information you discover. The 'revolution' you are alluding to is merely poor timing; even I am aware of that. The diversion of security resources to the Spire vastly exceeded my recommendations, so I am hardly surprised they took this opportunity. I am laying no blame at your feet for the escalating actions of malcontents previously limited to public vandalism."     A beat, then something approaching a dry smirk. "I am aware of the fact that if your organization wished to take the opportunity to cause chaos at this time, they would have far better means of doing so. I hope that you continue to value a logical and rational route of progress."     All-Seeing Eye, meanwhile, does a second comb of the office. Low to the ground (from his perspective), he can deduce that the ambient cold had spread out in an extremely sudden and sharply defined wave from a central point, directly in front of the desk. There is no particular item in the room that should have done it, and the water in the air has neither decreased due to being trapped to make ice, or increased by its evaporation back into the air. It's basically like it had come from somewhere else; some surreal approximation of real ice painted onto the surroundings with an uncanny brush, yet real enough to have caused blackening frostbite. Baan is almost definitely correct that it is absolutely not native, comprised of no form of mana nor Aether he has identified around Ghirapur.     Really close to the floor, there are also two things that had previously escaped even his incredibly sharp-eyed notice. One is the barest impression of footprints at the center, though too shallow and worn away by hours of evaporation to take real 'prints' of. The other is that the frost kind of looks like the floor is actually transparent, and that he's looking through rime-covered glass into some watery chamber below. If he squints at it, he can kinda see shapes in it. Things lurking just below. Eyes hovering inches from the glass. Waiting hands.     Yeah, it wasn't an ice mage. Even the aesthetics can't help but be all kinds of heebie jeebie.
Priscilla	There seems to be good reason that the first responders just let their hacked robots have their way in 'protecting' them, backing off to let the new team take over. WHen Riva lets rip with the shotgun, a squad of the new guys form up and overlap their shields, eating shot blast and covering their advance until the barricades crumble, deform, and break. Rather than charging her head on though, they peel off as she runs straight down at them, or more specifically, their big boss man taking a stroll behind them.     Riva rams into him directly, and he takes it. He seems surprised by her strength at first, having underestimated by looks, and grinds backwards through the pavement until he almost reaches his own descent crater, nearly tipping off of his heels, before he manages to hook both of his burly arms under Riva's to lift her up off her feet, and with a loud grunt, flexes to push her arms behind her back to the point he clearly intends to snap both of them, just plain grappling her with his overbearing size and superior leverage in military CQC style.     He has to toss her before he can do much more than that though, when August gets up and shoots at him. One hand is required to reach up and punch the massive blast of fired, reaching into its core and yanking out a fistful of glowing red wire that causes the whole thing to disintegrate into bits. He looks like he's done this before. /A lot/. He doesn't even think twice before dunking his hand into the raging flames and finding exactly the right string of energy to pull, and his gauntlet seems to be specially made for it.     A low, gravelly voice rasps from behind the hood and visor, best belonging to a burly, chain-smoking ex-marine with a severe throat injury. He responds to August's snark with "Oh I'll give you a warning. 'Children who play with fire get burned in the end'. You aren't the first, and you won't be the last."     Extending his opposite wrist, his second gauntlet fires a high speed hidden grapnel wire, embedding into the rubble in an instant. It reels to assist a lightning fast lunge which takes him over the huge gap between him and August and results in a split second, flying double boot kick to the chest, from a guy who weighs three times as much as he does. He doesn't even let August go flying, reaching out to grab him by the collar and deploying a massive blade from his wrist mount, but he doesn't get much further in police brutalizing a teenager for having an opinion before a bulky thopter with a lance tip dives in and smashes into his side, breaking on some kind of force shield quickly deployed from the /other/ magitech gauntlet, and forcing him to release August.     Renegade Prime seems to be fully cognizant of the issue now, visibly sweating bullets as she packs up what she can and prepares to leave the rest after that last attack. Her fellow Renegades have most of the injured and are booking it back to the narrow, dark streets that only they know, leaving the completely immobile for Staren to carry away, which he will certainly be thanked for later. They may be shitty fighters, but they're pros at escaping, and taking a quick survey, most of them have nearly full tanks to go with their bruises and burns.
Theo Morrison	"Awesome. And I'll tell my lizard brain that," Theo asides. "Though... you're right about that. Invisible and..." He eyes the scene one more time, gears turning -- Staren picks up his end of the phone conversation. Theo rolls his eyes, mouthing, 'finally.' Eye gets one side of the conversation: "Yeah I noticed! Your boss is like thirty feet from me talkin' to the Consulate and you're out robbing an aether pump? C'mon, man! What the heck!" A pause. "Okay, well, there's been a really bloody assassination over here, and it sounds like there was some kinda deal with someone else on your end. Just don't -- don't kill anyone or blow up any city blocks, okay, or I'm gonna have to come down there. Get your new friends to gee-tee-eff-oh before they start dropping giant robots on you. Oh, by the way, they /have/ those." He massages his brow, pacing in place, then throws a hand up silently. "Okay! Good! Do that! We'll talk about this later." He starts to reach for the earpiece again, and then... spots only about half of the people in question fleeing the scene. Theo grinds his teeth. "Alright. Screw it." He disconnects, calling, "Hey, Eye! I'll be right back!" Theo takes a step towards his second viewscreen. The world tears like a sheet of paper. It mends right behind him. The screen vanishes. Theo does, too. Theo appears out of thin air with a rush of displaced air amidst the Consulate forces. He's got his badge turned out at his belt, glinting in the aether-light, and loops what looks an awful lot like a chain covered in odd badges, charms and baubles around his left forearm. His right is pointed into the crowd of renegades, two fingers and a thumb extended in a classic finger-gun gesture. "Alright you renegade screwheads, /listen up!/" Theo bellows. "It's /time to go home/!" He plants his foot, takes a breath -- and points right at Riva, who seems to be something of an immovable object. "Pacifism!" There's a surge of white light, spiralling up his lft arm and then springing off of his extended fingers on his right. It goes off like a flashbulb. The enchantment doesn't need more aiming than his own intent, and he intends to lay it on her: a sudden and remarkably comfortable compulsion to just... chill out. Be at peace. Violence isn't the answer. She should just go on and get out of here. Getting attacked isn't cool, but neither is smashing people. Can't we all just get along? He swings his arm in line with another renegade who lingers a little too long. There's a second flashbulb-like burst of white mana. Beautiful spectral blossoms spring up in the strap of his goggles and around his belt as the same enchantment tags him. Riva will find similar things popping up in her gear. Another pivot, and he sights August, channeling another surge of energy into the melee...!
August Kohler	August's fire getting hard-countered again really pisses him off, but not as much as getting grappled into, kicked hard in the chest which causes him to cough up and for the sound of something getting damaged and bruised to be heard, and then August is grabbed and at the mercy of a blade. He's probably going to die, he realizes. Or atleast, he realizes that until the thopter slams forward and hits the guy, letting August get free. He backs up, his Persona coming around to grab him and stop him from flat falling over, before the redhead moves to start running as fast as he can once he notices Renegade Prime in the clear. Riva's probably mad it took this long. As he runs, August moves the Tin Soldier behind him, it lifting its gun to fire psychic bullets instead of flames, when that spell kicks onto him, and he suddenly doesn't want to pull the trigger. He just wants to run, and doesn't even want to curse at the guy. Instead, the Tin Soldier rushes ahead of August, who climbs onto its back and uses its superior agility and speed to get out of there as fast as he can. "Banari, come on!" Hopefully, Riva will make it to his side as fast as possible. August is actually too scared of this guy they're fighting right now to turn his head and watch.
Riva Banari	Riva's set up to do this kind of crap. She jumps into the horrible places and does her best to stand between the problem and the things that need to survive intact. This and some other specific reasons are why she does crazy things like this. However, she underestimates Baral in return. She didn't think such a wiry (ha ha) guy would have this much /power/. A moment later, she's being pushed back, her arms stressing, bones creaking as she struggles to prevent her arms from being dislocated or broken or worse. August prevents a farewell to arms, however, and she ends up tossed, hitting the ground with a grunt. She picks herself up, rubbing her shoulders. "Okay, you're /really/ tough." She acknowledges. "But let's find out just how tough." Next up, she's pulling out a LAW, sighting Baral down the scope. Anima glows in the barrel as the circuits begin seething with light... And then flowers bloom in her scope, the will to pull the trigger draining out of her. She blinks, unsholdering the enchanted man-portable anti-tank weapon and looks around quizically. Her aggression is just... gone. Pacifism? "Well, this is inconvenient." She mutters. Turning, she shoves the weapons away, grabs her Cross, and turns to run before the po-po begin capitalizing on the fact that she can't seem to /fight back/. It /feels weird/. Who did that? She looks over at Theo, frowning. "I don't appreciate that!" She calls to Theo as she runs."